Fishing Up North: Stories of Luck and Loss in Alaskan Waters by Brad Matsen

Author:Brad Matsen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780882409849
Publisher: Alaska Northwest Books

Decoys of the Deep

Plugs were once carved painstakingly from wooden blanks, like duck decoys, and were real works of art. But today their plastic counterparts are nowhere near as popular as they were twenty-five years ago because of the success of hootchies. Nonetheless, they’re still in common use. Washington coast trollers seem to use more plugs than Alaskans, according to gear dealers Moore and Ask, among others. The biggest manufacturer of plugs is Tomic Lures of Canada, but a wide selection is also available from Silver Horde/Gold Star and other makers. Except for Martin Tackle’s Spar-X plugs, which are turned from Alaska cedar, all modern plugs are of hand-painted plastic. The solid-color plugs are made of ABS, a compound noted for its hardness. Glow-in-the-dark plugs are made of Butyrate.

Because of the handwork and savvy required, many troll gear makers are small, often family-style operations, and most got their start when plugs, not hootchies, were boss. Silver Horde, for instance, was started by Lew Morrison in 1948 and is now owned by Barry Morrison, his nephew. “Lew used to farm mink, and at one point they had a bad year,” recalls Barry in his Lynnwood, Washington, workshop. “With the last bit of money they had, the family bought a plug mold and turned out one of the first plastic plugs. Lew worked with Rex Fields, who was the first with the plastic plug.”

Now Silver Horde makes eleven sizes of plugs, from three inches to seven inches long, in no fewer than 400 color patterns. Barry’s son, Kelly, who is twenty-three, does all the painting, taking on a few assistants during the busy season. Manufacturing a product with so many variations isn’t easy, but the demand is there. “We listen to the fishermen. They talk to us,” says Barry. Silver Horde has also acquired the Golden Bait and Gold Star lines and has urged the Japanese firm that makes hootchies under these names to use color patterns similar to those in plugs of the same brand, and vice versa.

Generally, trollers prefer dark plugs in clear water and light plugs in cloudy water. Plugs are usually fished without a flasher, but the combination is not unheard of. “One time, I helped a guy fix his gurdy shaft and saved him a fifteen-hour run to town,” says Frank Caldwell. “He wanted to do something for me and told me he was dragging a particular kind of plug behind a flasher and catching kings in this one spot. I know he wasn’t lying to me, but I tried the exact same setup and couldn’t catch a one.”

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